I guess compared to last season anything would have felt better. Yeah and december really seems to be a long football month for us, 6 fixtures and 3 of them not only against tough teams but all of them away.

Of the six teams that finished above us this year, we play five of them on the road by January. If we can come out of those six games in the first half with around 10 or more points, the run in shouldn't be too bad. April/May has West Ham, Crystal Palace and Norwich? I can see us putting together some great performances in those last two months.

That's actually okay. Last season we had to play all of City, Arsenal, United, Chelsea and Spurs very close together. There seems to be more of a spread now.

Like Art has stated, December is our hardest month. It's a good thing it's balanced with some more "winnable" games in Norwich, West Ham and Cardiff. Bellamy back at Anfield. :proud:We should try and get at least two wins out of the City, Spurs and Chelsea games in Dec. That would put us in a great position on top.

The run home look's very good for us as well. We have all the teams in the top 5 at home bar United.

We have an okay run of fixtures in terms of the spread and the strength of the teams. Hopefully we can put some consistency in our game this season and get some form and confidence in us to fight and play in Europe next season.

more to that, towards the end also we should be doing more than OK. Out of aprl and May, two games city n chelsea are at home. Everyone's fav fixture norwich is also dere so hopefully we will make a strong finish

We struggle a lot more against the "smaller" clubs, though. Suarez was basically our X-factor. It will be interesting to see how we play without him and how well the likes of Coutinho and Sturridge (plus signings) step up. The performances in the second half of the season won't mean much in the next campaign.

We struggle against physical sides, not "smaller" ones. We blew quite a few of them right out of the park last season.

Stoke won't be the same rugby team they have been since debuting in the PL now that Pulis is gone, and the other sides we play aren't really that physical when defending. Benteke might be a concern if he's still with Villa but that's an issue for the defense, not the attack.

No we struggle to break down "smaller" teams as well as "physical" sides.

Look at every game for us last season before Sturridge and Coutinho came. Every team we "blew" passed was because of Luis. Suarez was responsible for 70% of our goals or assists. (Can't find the source right now but it was something ridiculous like that.)

But Coutinho and Sturridge ARE here now, and we HAVEN'T regularly struggled against smaller sides with them. Along with them we'll also have a fit Borini, Aspas, and others (Mkhitaryan, Atsu, whoever) who will provide even more options for breaking down defensive sides. You've basically defeated your own argument by admitting that our performances changed with the arrivals of Coutinho and Sturridge.

No I haven't. They're here now, yes. That's why I said it will be interesting to see how they perform and how we do without Luis in the team this coming season. We had nothing to play for in the second half of the season.* So they'll be a lot more pressure on Coutinho and Sturridge now to perform than they did in the second half of the season.

Borini, Aspas and Mhitaryan could probably help break teams down too, well, if they do sign of course, and that's my point. They could do it. We still don't know how well they'd do in the team as we haven't seen them perform consistently yet. And unlike you, I haven't seen Aspas or Mkhitaryan play at all. So I have no idea what they're like.

The first 6 games define where our team is at, for me at least. How well we perform without Luis Suarez when there is something to play for. We won't be playing Europe next season if we still have to rely on Suarez most of the time. The start of the season basically defines who the "passengers" to the "carriers" are.

*We bottled every game we needed to win in the second half of the season when we got close to the top who were fighting to play in Europe, although Luis was still in the team then.